Federal judge upholds SAFE Act, with a few exceptions

U.S. District Court Judge William M. Skretny has ruled in favor of the state in a lawsuit brought by the state Rifle and Pistol Association and a number of other sportsmans’ organizations and individuals, including Republican Assemblyman Bill Nojay.

“In resolving the pending motions, this Court notes that whether regulating firearms is wise or warranted is not a judicial question; it is a political one,” the Buffalo-based judge writes in a 54-page order. “This Court’s function is thus limited to resolving whether New York’s elected representatives acted within the confines of the United States Constitution in passing the SAFE Act. Undertaking that task,and applying the governing legal standards, the majority of the challenged provisions withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

” … The Act, however, is not constitutionally flawless. For reasons articulated below, the seven-round limit is largely an arbitrary restriction that impermissibly infringes on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. This Court therefore strikes down that portion of the Act. Finally, this Court must strike three provisions of the SAFE Act as unconstitutionally vague because an ordinary person must speculate as to what those provisions of the Act command or forbid.”

The three elements of the bill that were struck down for vagueness include two grammatical errors: the misspelled “muzzle break” (it should be “brake”), and this provision on large-capacity magazines:

It shall be unlawful for a person to knowingly possess a large capacity ammunition feeding device manufactured before September thirteenth, nineteen hundred ninety-four, and if such person lawfully possessed such large capacity feeding device before the effective date of the chapter of the laws of two thousand thirteen which added this section, that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than ten rounds of ammunition.

Skretney agrees with the plaintiff that while everything before the “and if” is clear as glass, the remainder of the sentence is “incomplete and entirely indecipherable.”

Finally, Skretny finds that the definition of “versions” in the description of certain regulated weapons is too vague and must be struck.

The judge upholds the expansion of the definition of banned assault weapons:

Calling the SAFE Act’s restrictions “a ban on an entire class of firearms,” Plaintiffs liken the SAFE Act to the ban struck down by the Supreme Court in [the Heller decision]. But unlike the handgun ban, the SAFE Act applies only to a subset of firearms with characteristics New York State has determined to be particularly dangerous and unnecessary for self-defense; it does not totally disarm New York’s citizens; and it does not meaningfully jeopardize their right to self-defense.

His rejection of the seven-round ban is based on the potential for disadvantaging law-abiding citizens in a possible standoff with a miscreant with 10 rounds in his or her own chamber — an argument used over the past year my many opponents of the SAFE Act:

Unlike the restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the seven-round limit cannot survive intermediate scrutiny.It stretches the bounds of this Court’s deference to the predictive judgments of the legislature to suppose that those intent on doing harm (whom, of course, the Act is aimed to stop) will load their weapon with only the permitted seven rounds. In this sense, the provision is not “substantially related” to the important government interest in public safety and crime prevention. Indeed, Heller found that the Second Amendment right is at its zenith in the home;in particular, the Court highlighted the right of a citizen to arm him or herself for self-defense. But this provision, much more so than with respect to the other provisions of the law, presents the possibility of a disturbing perverse effect, pitting the criminal with a fully-loaded magazine against the law-abiding citizen limited to seven rounds.